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“There was Falconhurst and Gregg.” Macklin began counting off on his fingers. “Summerford and Dawes and Wingate, and others too numerous to mention. The Prince called you delectable.” He glanced over his shoulder at Roger. “Now the Regent,” he explained.
“My mother didn’t leave me alone withhim,” replied Roger’s mother. “Papa was livid when he mentioned me in that way, but Mama was quite up to the mark. She was pretty well acquainted with the queen, you know.”
“Didn’t Lensford compare you to Botticelli’s Venus?” Macklin said. “Or shouldn’t I mention that?”
She laughed. “Such a shocking thing to say.” She didn’t seem at all bothered by this fact, however.
Was that the painting with the lady on the half shell clothed only in her long hair? Roger rather thought it was.Nota proper image to describe a young lady, especially one’s mother. He banished it from his mind.
“Many hopes were dashed when your mother accepted your father’s proposal,” Macklin said. “Lensford threatened to shoot himself.”
“Of course he didn’t mean it,” she replied. “He wassucha dramatic young man. I wonder what’s become of him.”
“Gone to fat,” answered the earl promptly. “Lives in Somerset. Breeds prize sheep.”
“Oh no!”
Macklin nodded. “Married Wrenly’s daughter.”
“I did know that. But sheep! Couldn’t it have been hunting dogs, at least? What about his poetry?”
The earl shrugged. “He may still write it. But he never published another volume after the one that critic calledunmitigated bilge.”
“He was crushed,” said Roger’s mother sympathetically.
“More of a sulk, I thought.” The earl smiled at her in a way that recalled a far younger man.
She gestured. Roger could almost see a fan in her hand, extended to rap the older man’s knuckles.
“I was among those spurned,” Macklin said to Roger. He didn’t seem particularly regretful, however. More amused and nostalgic.
“Hardly that,” Roger’s mother replied. “And it seems to me you were courting Celia Garthington well before I married.”
He acknowledged it with a nod as the Chatton Castle housekeeper bustled in.
“Is Lord Macklin’s room ready, Mrs. Burke?”
“Yes, my lady.” The housekeeper turned to Macklin. “Your valet is already above, my lord. Would you care to go up?”
He accepted with a nod and a punctilious farewell.
When Roger and his mother were left alone she said, “How extraordinary that he came all this way to visit me.”
“I don’t think… He said he was on the way to Scotland for some fishing.”
“Well, he needed an excuse,” she replied. “But why else stop at Chatton?”
“To see me, he said. I had dinner with him the last time I was in London.”
“You did?”
“I was surprised at the invitation,” Roger admitted.
His mother looked thoughtful. “Would he go so far as to make friends with you so that he could visit here? Now that I’m a widow.”
“Papa has been dead for more a year.”
“Indeed. A proper period of mourning, which shows great sensitivity on Arthur’s part.”
